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DAVID BOWIE ARCHIVE ANNOUNCED

Paul Browne

The V&A has announced that its David Bowie Centre, opening 13 September 2025 at V&A East Storehouse, will feature an exclusive guest-curated display by multiple award-winning musician, producer, songwriter and David Bowie collaborator, Nile Rodgers and Brit Award-winning indie rock band, The Last Dinner Party. These intimate selections from Bowie’s archive offer new perspectives on one of the most iconic creatives of all time and sit alongside a series of other mini-curated displays and installations exploring Bowie’s creative legacy and lasting influence.

Visitors to the David Bowie Centre, the new free-to-access working store and permanent home for David Bowie’s archive, can also book one-on-one time with their own selections from the 90,000+ items in his archive.

The David Bowie archive was acquired by the V&A through the generosity of the David Bowie Estate, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group. It joins over 1,000 archives from creative luminaries including Vivien Leigh, the House of Worth, and The Glastonbury Festival Archive.

L to R David Bowie performing as Ziggy Stardust wearing an asymmetric catsuit designed by Kansai Yamamoto. Photo Mick Rock, 1973. © Mick Rock, Guest curators, The Last Dinner Party, with items from David Bowie’s Archive. Photograph by Timothy Eliot Spurr for the Victoria and Albert Museum, Asymmetric catsuit David Bowie wore as Ziggy Stardust. Designed by Kansai Yamamoto, 1973. Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum

Nile Rodgers, who produced Bowie’s hugely successful single and 1983 album, Let’s Dance, as well as 1993’s Black Tie White Noise, has written, produced, and performed on records that have sold more than 750 million albums and 100 million singles worldwide. Speaking of the venture, Nile Rodgers comments: “My creative life with David Bowie provided the greatest success of his incredible career, but our friendship was just as rewarding. Our bond was built on a love of the music that had both made and saved our lives.”

Bookings to see 3D items from the David Bowie archive, including costumes, musical instruments, models, props and scenery, can be made through the V&A’s new seven-day-a-week Order an Object service. Visitors can book up to five items per visit at a time that suits them. Bookings require at least two weeks’ notice and Bowie items will begin to go live for advance booking from September. Once the Centre opens, paper-based items including sketches, designs, writings, lyrics, press cuttings, and photographic prints, negatives and transparencies can be consulted through scheduling advance appointments with the Archives team.

Suit David Bowie wore for Serious Moonlight tour for album Let’s Dance. Designed by Peter Hall, with bow tie from Harrod’s and suspenders from Brooks Brothers, 1983. Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum
Asymmetric catsuit David Bowie wore as Ziggy Stardust. Designed by Kansai Yamamoto, 1973. Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum
Aladdin Sane jacket. Designed by Freddie Burretti for David Bowie, 1973. Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum
Drawing for Space Oddity album artwork, by David Bowie, 1969. © The David Bowie Archive

Highlights include stage costumes such as Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane ensembles designed by Freddie Burretti and Kansai Yamamoto (1970s), lyrics for songs including ‘Fame’ (1975), ‘Heroes’ (1977) and ‘Ashes to Ashes’ (1980), as well as examples of the ‘cut up’ method of writing introduced to Bowie by the writer William Burroughs.

Nile Rodgers selections include:

  • A bespoke Peter Hall suit worn by Bowie during the Serious Moonlight tour for
    the Let’s Dance album
  • Chuck Pulin photographs of Bowie, Rodgers and guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan
    recording Let’s Dance in New York
  • Personal correspondence between Bowie and Rodgers about the 1993 Black Tie
    White Noise     album
  • Peter Gabriel images of the recording sessions with backing vocalists Fonzi
    Thorton, Tawatha Agee, Curtis King Jr, Denis Collins, Brenda White-King, Maryl
    Epps, Frank Simms, George Simms, David Spinner, Lamya Al-Mughiery and
    Connie Petruk recording Black Tie White Noise.

The Last Dinner Party selections include:

  • Mick Rock photos showing Bowie in intimate recording studio moments
  • Bowie’s elaborate handwritten lyrics for ‘Win’ from the 1974 album Young
    Americans
  • Writings and set lists for the Station to Station tour, aka Isolar – 1976 Tour
  • Bowie’s Electronic Music Studios (EMS) synthesiser user manual. The ‘suitcase
    synth’ was used on the albums Low, ‘Heroes’ and Lodger, the so-called ‘Berlin’
    trilogy.

For more information on the David Bowie Centre and to sign-up for updates,
please visit: vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/david-bowie-centre.

Main image: David Bowie performing on the Ziggy Stardust tour, 1973 © Mick Rock 1973, Estate of Mick Rock 2025